The Louise Weiss Prize 2011, an award for journalism, was given to French journalist Blaise Gauquelin for his investigative article about the assassinations of opponents of Ramzan Kadyrov.

This year’s Louise Weis Prize for European journalism which was created by the Association of European Journalists, was presented in Paris by Laurent Wauquiez, Minister of Foreign Affairs in France. The jury, chaired by Véronique Auger, a journalist from France 3 TV channel, has decided to award “Blaise Gauquelin” this year for his article “The Killers of President Kadyrov“, published in September 2010 in a French newspaper. During the award ceremony, the article was presented as: “This exciting investigative work searched and highlighted the weaknesses in protecting European political refugees seeking protection and democracy, and the difficult relations between the EU and Russia.”

Recall that Blaise Gauquelin’s article focuses on the assassinations of Ramzan Kadyrov’s political opponents and human rights defenders. The author describes Kadyrov as “the satrap of Grozny” and gives information about the atmosphere of fear not only in Chechnya, but also in Europe. But maybe the most interesting point in the article is the elimination list. According to the article, Kadyrov has a list where 5,000 people are named as troublemakers and of which 500 of them must be eliminated. The author mentions the pressure applied by the Russian security service FSB on European authorities and a cooperation agreement on refugees.

*Text was written by Waynakh Online and edited by Michael Capobianco